Pune: The National Institute of Virology (NIV) has found the presence of norovirus and the bacteria Campylobacter jejuni in samples of 21 Guillain-Barré syndrome patients in Pune, officials from the state health department said on Thursday.
Both Campylobacter jejuni and norovirus (a family of viruses) trigger similar symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea – all symptoms many of the Pune patients had before they developed full-blown GBS. Norovirus can also trigger GBS. In fact, this family of viruses has been found responsible for nearly half of all outbreaks of acute infectious, non-bacterial gastroenteritis in some parts of the world.
“The two prominent organisms found by NIV include Campylobacter Jejuni and Norovirus,” said Dr Babita Kamlapurkar, joint director of state health services.
The 21 patient samples analysed by NIV were sent by two hospitals in Pune on Tuesday – Deenanath Mangeshkar and Poona Hospital. Earlier, it was a private lab that had found Campylobacter jejuni in three patient samples.
On Thursday, state officials said Pune’s GBS cluster has increased to 67 patients, from the 24 PMC had confirmed on Tuesday. At least 13 of these 67 patients are on ventilator support, civic officials said.
Dr Neena Borade, PMC’s chief public health officer said so far about 13 samples of water have been sent for chemical, bacteriological and virological analyses to the state lab. “It’ll be a few days before we get the test results. We also surveyed locations from Rajaram bridge to Khadakwasla and visited hospitals treating many of the GBS patients. Since nearly 80% of them reported gastrointestinal symptoms, we now think contaminated water triggered this GBS spike,” she said.
She also said that PMC will carry out ‘Super Chlorination’ in tanks or water bodies found with contamination, to reduce bacteriological or viral load in the water.
